The Defence Institute "Professor Tsvetan Lazarov" is established in Bulgaria and internationally recognized scientific organization, that has proved its unique expertise in the field of defence and security.

The Defence Institute is established on 04.06.2009 by Decree № 140 of the Council of Ministers as a legal entity to the Minister of Defense and it is the successor of the rich traditions of a number of previous military-scientific, scientific-technical institutes and expert structures of the Ministry of Defence. On 21.01.2014, with Decree № 5 of the Council of Ministers, the Defence Institute was named as "Professor Tsvetan Lazarov".

By its essence, the institute is a unique organizational complex with a proven scientific and expert part. It employs scientists, researchers, engineers and experts with an enormous scientific capacity and experience. In the academic units, more than a half of the Institute's personnel are academic staff, with respective academic degrees and titles.

Scientific activity

The Institute performs scientific and scientific-applied researches, as well as an experimental-constructive work in ten different fields, covering almost all the areas of security and defence, and the Bulgarian Defence Industry. The Institute participates with research teams in many national and international projects within NATO and the EU, cooperating with about 100 scientific organizations and business structures.

Training

The training for obtaining the educational and scientific degree "Doctor" and "The Doctor of Science" degree in accredited doctoral programs is the other main direction of the Institute's activity. At present, there are nine accredited academic doctoral programs, as follows: "Dynamics, ballistics and aerial vehicles flight control", "Radiolocation and radio-navigation", "Radio-transmitting and radio-receiving equipment", "Automated information processing and control systems", "Optical laser devices and methods", "Design and projecting of automatic and piloted aerial vehicles", "Methods for controlling and testing of materials, devices and appliances", "Chemical technologies, related to security and defense" and "Information technologies and cyber security".  In 2009, to the Defence Institute is established a CISCO-Academy for training of military and civilian personnel from the MoD system, in High-Tech information technologies.

Expert activity

The Defense Institute's expertise is actively used for certification of quality management systems, products, related to defence, means for ensuring physical security of the information, as well as for guaranteeing and management of the quality of the supplied products and for registration and certification of the airworthiness of the military and police aircrafts.

Besides, in the Institute there are at disposal three laboratories, accredited by "The Bulgarian Accreditation Service" Executive Agency, which are used to conduct tests and studies on the characteristics of products for resistance to external factors (temperature, humidity, atmospheric influences, etc.), to test logistics property and materials, and to calibrate and verify measurement equipment.